Electric Vehicle Publications Fact Check One Another - Name Calling Begins

Publications advocating for battery electric vehicles are offering competing headlines on what the EV deliveries mean. It’s fun to compare and contrast the views of the EVangelist media.

If you want to touch a nerve with a story related to battery-only vehicles, simply add an adjective before the words “EV Sales.” This will send those who push the vehicles, EV-advocacy publications as we term them, into a tizzy. Rather than us trying to insert our opinion, let’s take a look at how these publications spar among themselves, going so far as to actually call one another “liars” and worse.

New York Times - E.V. Sales “Slowing” and “Slumping”
We think the uncivil war of words between the EV-only jihadist began in April 2024. That month, the New York Times had a headline saying, “E.V. Sales Are Slowing. Tesla’s Are Slumping.” The story points out that EV sales “decreased” from quarter to quarter. Decrease is an angry word that EVangelists cringe at hearing. 

U.S. Energy and Information Administration - EV Sales “Decreased”
There’s that angry word again. “Decreased.” It's so ugly if you want an increase. EIA, as it calls itself, is a U.S. energy data agency. The folks there published what old people might call facts related to EV sales and energy. The first line of the story was, “The share of electric and hybrid vehicle sales in the United States decreased in the first quarter of 2024 as battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales declined.” The battery-only jihad will not tolerate this kind of fact-based information sharing, and its standard bearers quickly addressed it. 

Clean Technica - EV Sales “Slump”
This pro-EV publication disputed the facts as presented by the New York Times and EIA by publishing a story titled “The Alleged Electric Car Sales Slowdown Is A Fiction — The EV Revolution Is Alive & Well.” There is a lot to unpack in that title. First, any slowdown in EV sales is not fact but fiction. Second, EVs are not powertrain options; they are a “Revolution.” We love the passion in this title. 

We also love the words. In his story, the author calls folks who report on EV sales facts nabobs. This term has a few meanings. It can refer to a person who returns from the Far East with newfound wealth. Or it can refer to a person in general who is conspicuously displaying their wealth. How that fits this narrative is unclear. We get the gist, though. If you report on sales data related to EVs and the news is unfavorable, you will be called names. Sort of like the unfavorable EV sales from Tesla the story includes. The author writes of Tesla saying, “It repeatedly slashed prices last year to maintain growth before its first-quarter slump." Ouch. That word seems hurtful. Saying slump when referring to the sales of a single company with half of the EV market is a real stinger. The story concludes by telling readers not to look for other sources of information. Specifically from the “...right wing press and social media.” Maybe the author means Inside EVs?

Inside EVs - EV Sales Called Lagging and Slowdown
Inside EVs. This is a publication that we respect. Some of the top experts in the world contribute to this publication, and we often quote them in our own work. Here are two headlines from Inside EVs and their dates of publication:

1. The EV Slowdown Will Last Another 12-18 Months, Analysts Say. August 6, 2024
2. Why Are EV Sales 'Lagging'? Here Are Two Reasons. August 9, 2024

As you can see, this publication terms what EV sales are doing “Lagging and Slowing.” The stories were published on back-to-back business days after the month-end delivery data was issued in August, so they have all the most current data available to them. The second article was authored by Patrick George, the publication’s Editor in Chief. Mr. George has been at The Drive, Washington Post, Road & Track, the Wall Street Journal, and a few other publications in the past. It’s safe to say he knows the value of an honest headline. As far as we know, he is not now and never has been a nabob.

Electrek - EV Sales “Lower” and Have Demonstrated “Slower Growth”
Next up is what seems to be a rebuttal to the stories by Inside EVs. It was published just a day after the second Inside EVs story appeared. It is titled, “EV sales have not fallen, cooled, slowed or slumped. Stop lying in headlines.” Wow! That is a stern warning by author Jameson Dow. His story says that EV sales have not slowed, cooled, or stalled, but then he also says, “Over the course of the last year or so, sales of battery electric vehicles, while continuing to grow, have posted lower year-over-year percentage growth rates than they had in previous years.” Whatever you do, don’t mention to Mr. Dow that “lower” is a dirty word when discussing EV sales. In the story, there are charts and graphs. One of which is from that EIA publication we mentioned way up at the top of this timeline. It shows that EV sales drop overall as a percentage of U.S. vehicle deliveries. Just don't say “drop” to Mr. Dow when discussing EV sales. Also, Mr. Dow says in his story that one fact is that EV sales have demonstrated “slower growth.” Yikes. Slower sounds bad. It sounds a lot like one of the words in the title of his story he told us we should not use. 

Torque News’ Summary of the War of the EVangelists
We have a few takeaways here. Here’s a simple punch list:

• Clean Technica views the New York Times and EIA as “Right Wing Press.”
• Inside EVs is straying close to being ex-communicated by using unapproved EV language in titles.
• As with all religions, blasphemy will not be tolerated by the battery-only jihad.
• Pro-EV publications are now calling one another names in stories. Nabob? 

Feel free to give all the stories mentioned in our piece a good read. We’ve made the links very easy. Tell us how you feel about pro-ev publications calling one another names and exchanging words bordering on insults in the comments below. 

Top of page image - The chart at the top of that page comes from our story titled- Here’s a Graph of the Past 6 Quarters of EV Deliveries in America

If you'd like to add a comment under this story, please note that our comments section has returned and is in bold red at the bottom of the page.

John Goreham is an experienced New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work at our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading.